Petroleum-based fuel prices in the United Sates continue to rise, causing economical pain to both businesses and consumers. Several reasons have been cited for the increasingly high prices seen at the gas pump. The United States continues to be one of the world's largest users of petroleum-based fuel. It is estimated the U.S. uses 18-20 million barrels of crude oil a day. As other countries such as China and India become more industrialized, they compete for oil resulting in increases in the price of gas prices increase. Over the past several decades, the U.S. has steadily decreased its domestic production, creating increased dependency on foreign oil sources and fluctuating prices which are not always controllable. Exploring and drilling for new sources of domestic oil may be a mechanism to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil. However, environmental concerns regarding the use of fossil fuels, i.e. increased levels of carbon dioxide emissions believed to contribute to the global warming phenomenon, have contributed to increased efforts for the development of alternative petroleum-based fuel sources.
Energy portfolios of the United States, as well as other industrialized nations, must be adapted to account for increased energy costs resulting from increased competition for limited resources as well as demand for cleaner fuels.
Additionally, means to increase the efficiency of vehicles using traditional as well as non-traditional fuel sources are needed to insure that such vehicles are running as efficiently as possible. Engine lubricants and fuel additives containing boric acid or boric oxide have been used to provide a means for improving lubricity in order to increase engine efficiency for years. While the use of such materials has shown promise, engine oils or lubricants developed form suspensions or emulsions as the boric acid or boric oxide is not easily or fully dissolved and tends to separate. Use of a nanotechnology to decease the size of the boric acid/boric oxide particles have improved the separation problem, however, such techniques are time consuming, expensive, and still suffers from the possibility of particle separation.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is an engine lubricant formulation applied to internal combustion engines which is cheap and easy to produce, forms a solution to prevent particle separation, and is formulated to reduce friction, corrosion, and wear in the internal combustion engines.